Many of us have realized that sending troops into some areas can be counter-productive. No matter how many the Israelis kill, more Palestinians prepare to fight them. Our boots on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan led many to take up arms against us. To them, we were the invaders.

Let me pose an analogy and see if it fits. We don’t have survey data from everywhere but what we have is telling. The Rutherford Institute, which has billed itself as “A non-profit conservative legal organization dedicated to the defense of civil, especially religious, liberties and human rights,” told the U.S. Supreme Court recently, that “the most common justification cited by New York City police for stopping individuals was presence in a ‘high crime area’” and “an additional 32% of stops were based on the time of day, and 23% of police stops were for an unspecified reason.”[i]Read the rest of this entry »

While coming to record last week’s commentary, I was listening to Michelle Alexander on Alternative Radio. If you haven’t heard her or read her book, The New Jim Crow, I strongly recommend it. Some of us knew the basic facts but she fills in the details and makes the argument brilliantly.

I want to elaborate something implicit in her talk but not fully expressed – what she described is why civil liberties matter, one of the major reasons the ACLU was formed, and why Alexander was an attorney for the ACLU of Northern California. Read the rest of this entry »